Upgrade
types and rulesWith some rare exceptions, BEIKS does
not provide support for versions other than the most recent one.

Updates are not always
reflected in the publicly available Install Expert trial version, which is
another good reason to pay for the product. By doing so you are guaranteed to
have access to the most recent version.

And announced update will
always be to the most recent version. It may be either free or commercial one.

Free update means that
every registered owner of the latest version may get its update at no extra
cost.
To do that, use the MyStuff section
of the website to log-in and download the latest distributive.

Commercial update is an
update that is either forced on us by market changes (say a new version of a
desktop host by Palm or BlackBerry) or introduces significant improvements over
the current version.

As the name suggests,
commercial upgrades will cost to obtain.

Owners of previous product
version can upgrade to the latest version by logging-in to our site through
MyStuff and choosing the upgrade
link located under the original order record.

Upon new commercial release
BEIKS notifies current owners and usually provides a grace period during which
owners of the current top version can upgrade at a discount price.

Once that period is expired,
the upgrade is reduced to cost similar to or equivalent to the current product
price.

Orders made within 30 days
of any new major release (e.g. 3.x to 4.x) are automatically receiving the new version
at no extra cost. If you find you order qualifies for the free upgrade, but has
NOT been automatically converted please let
us know.

Pilot Catapult
owners

Subject to the above rules, all
upgrades from Pilot Catapult to Install Expert are currently considered new
application purchases due to the expired upgrade period.

Using command-line
builds

One of the least
advertised, but most useful Install Expert features is the ability to
make builds from the command line.

For the past few
years, we at BEIKS have been using this feature to build the
vast majority of dictionary packages for Palm, Windows Mobile
and BlackBerry
devices. Indeed, if for every product you need to make a trial
and a full build, then a branded build for various distributors,
then a build for every target platform, then eventually a build
for every target language...phew, it's a lot!
Did we mention the version changes?

If you have
already been through the hell of releasing a second build in
similar conditions you must already be looking for means to
automate the process. And rightfully so!

While
Install Expert does not currently include sample projects using
automation, it is itself fully capable of becoming part of the
automation chain - a feature, as mentioned earlier, which is
heavily used and tested within BEIKS.

Java
conduits

Install Expert does not currently support Java based conduits
and we are not sure we want to support them in near future.

There are various
pros and cons of using any tool, of course, and we do not tell
you to cross Java for conduits (although that is what we have
chosen to do). However, Install Expert is designed and targeted
towards compact and optimized solutions, the Zen of the Palm
computing platform. If you are to redistribute the whole JVM for
a conduit that can be implemented in under 100 kB executable,
then you probably don't care about the size of your installation
anyway and might as well use the heavy artillery of installers,
like Install Shield or Wise.

We would be sorry
to lose a customer, but we also believe that tools should
be used according to their design capabilities. As of version
4, Install Expert definitely does not provide good and meaningful
ways to install Java-based applications.

Read the CDK!

Although
InstallExpert
is meant to save you time and efforts, it is not meant to
replace the knowledge of how conduits fit in a Palm OS based
solutions.

Reading and
understanding the Conduit Development Kit is crucial to the
success of your solution. Everything, from selecting unique
database creator, to choosing the type of conduit (DLL or EXE,
COM or simple API) to understanding the need and proper usage of
the redistributable COM suite DLLs - all this plays the central
role in implementing the best possible application that will
sell well. InstallExpert should be just another tool in your arsenal,
but the ability to use it is your power and responsibility.